


Anyanka's Pearl

by anyjay



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-14
Updated: 2008-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 18:39:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anyjay/pseuds/anyjay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once they'd reached Cleveland, Xander had taken charge of all things funereal.</p><p>Mentions of Anya/Xander.  Hints of pre-slash</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anyanka's Pearl

**Author's Note:**

> They belong to Joss and Mutant Enemy, not to me. Set post-Chosen. Comics? What comics?
> 
> This was written for [Spring_with_Xan](http://community.livejournal.com/spring_with_xan/)
> 
> The D'hoffryn is also featured in this story, but isn't listed in the character list.

Once they’d reached Cleveland, Xander had taken charge of all things funereal. It suited his mood. Plus, it was important that the new council – or the international house of slayage or whatever they were now – honor their dead. He’d started with Jonathan – just a small gathering in the living room of the new house since inviting anyone who didn’t know the circumstances of Jonathan’s death could cause extreme awkwardness. Also mass imprisonment for aiding and abetting.

Some of the dead potentials/slayers had friends or family who made the trip. For these occasions Xander rented the local VFW hall, and arranged for food, a combination of take out and potluck. For Spike’s wake, Xander found a crypt like the one in Sunnydale. The memorial ended early when a group of vampires wandered in, but the no-holds-barred fight that followed seemed a fitting tribute to the vamp who saved the world.

For Anya, Xander had pulled out all the stops, renting the hall and sending out invitations far and wide to every being who knew her. Demons welcome, with a promise of no slayage as long as violence and black magic were held in check.

Xander hadn’t thought about the damage that could be done by words alone.

Booze flowed pretty freely. Xander and Robin provided beer, Giles contributed Scotch and some of the guests brought potent brews of their own.

Andrew told about Anya saving his life, how she had jumped between Andrew and certain death shouting ‘servants of the dread first evil, I defy you! Love and goodness will surely triumph!’ Giles told about Anya stubbornly conjuring rabbit after rabbit after rabbit. Clem had a story about Anya, two bottles of elderberry wine and a kayak. Willow described the bridesmaids dresses Anya had forced them to wear. Xander had laughed until he’d cried, and then cried some more. Giles squeezed his shoulder in sympathy, and stayed beside him while he recovered his composure.

Gradually people and other beings began to express condolences to Xander and drift away, some to sleep, others to patrol. At last only a small group remained gathered around a single table: Anya’s closest demon friends, plus Xander, Giles and Andrew. Silence had fallen over the group, and Giles was planning how to usher out the last guests, when the D’Hoffryn stood and spoke.

“Mr. Harris, I also feel the need to share a story with this fine group. Anyanka was a true genius, renown not only for her hard work but also for her creative methods, her talent for wringing the utmost pain and despair from every wish. Even the highlights of her long and illustrious career would take days – weeks – to tell. But for this sad occasion, I have chosen a special story of a most unpromising wish – a wish some might have ignored as not worth their time. A wish that Anyanka’s genius turned into a true pearl.

“Some years ago, Anyanka learned of a pregnant young woman whose lover had abandoned her. Posing as a doctor at a prenatal clinic, Anyanka did her best to evoke the woman’s fury, but the woman was too downtrodden. She blamed her predicament on fate, saying she simply attracted the wrong type of man. She wanted her baby to have a better class of friends: well-to-do, educated, cultured. She told Anyanka that she wished that her baby – and these are her exact words – ‘will grow up to attract someone like you.’

“When Anyanka told me the story, she was gleeful. Attract is such an interesting word. A beautiful woman can attract a man. Bait can attract the shark that will devour it. A demon attracted to a human may want to mate with it, possess it, or eat it. Anyanka always gave that little extra that means so much, and for this wish she ensured that the attraction was strong, irresistible.

“Because of phrasing of the wish, it would not affect the child until he was older. But the eventual possibilities for rape and bloody death were myriad, especially as the child’s mother was foolish enough to live on a hellmouth.

“Anyanka lived very much in the present. She didn’t rest on her laurels or look back over her past triumphs. She granted so many wishes she couldn’t possibly remember them all, and subsequent events lead me to believe that that this one faded from her mind. But I found it intriguing, and would occasionally check up on the young woman. That is how I found out that the erstwhile lover returned and married the woman before she gave birth to the child, a boy they named Alexander.”

The D’Hoffryn paused, took a sip of his drink and glanced around at his audience. He gave a small smile to Giles, who was staring furiously at him, then turned to Xander. “You’re looking a little pale, Mr. Harris. Too many late nights, I suppose.

“As I was saying, I checked up on the family from time to time, and was surprised to find that the boy survived even though, or possibly because, he fought side by side with a vampire slayer. A number of supernatural beings were drawn to him – lovely, smart, and ancient, like Anyanka – but all were killed by the boy and his friends.

Like the typical human male he was, the boy eventually mistreated a young woman. The young woman’s pain called out to Anyanka and in granting her wish, Anyanka lost her powers and encountered the boy. His mother had wished he would attract someone like Anyanka, and there was no one more like Anyanka than Anyanka herself. So despite the impossibility that a beautiful, intelligent woman with more than a thousand years experience of the world could have any interest in a feckless high school boy, Anyanka became the victim of her own cleverness. She was doomed to love the boy until she died. Until she died in a battle she was woefully unprepared to fight, solely because she could not leave the boy – now a man.

“The interesting thing about the wish, Mr. Harris, was that it specified _someone_ like Anyanka. While she lived, the wish bound her alone. Now she’s dead, who can tell what will happen? If the man attracts demons who wish to eat him, I believe his companions will be able to protect him. But those companions, Mr. Harris, beautiful, smart, occasionally blunt, with a strong connection to the supernatural…”

“That’s quite enough,” Giles’ voice broke in angrily. “I really think we’ve heard sufficient nonsense this evening from Andrew, without adding any more unlikely stories.”

“Hey!” Andrew objected.

“No, let him finish.” Xander insisted, “I need to hear this.”

“You don’t,” Giles told him.

“What your friend does not wish you to know, Mr. Harris, is that, surrounded as this man is by those with a strong connection to the supernatural, it is only a matter of time before one of his companions will be compelled to fall irrevocably in love with him; a love that can only be ended by death. My question is this: which will you find more intolerable: if the individual trapped into loving you is someone you don’t love, or someone you do?”

Xander's mind was spinning. This couldn't be real.

The D’Hoffryn smiled brightly. “Thank you for inviting me, Mr. Harris. I hope you’ve found this to be an illuminating evening. I can’t say when I’ve enjoyed myself more.”

The D’Hoffryn turned and looked Giles squarely in the eyes. “There is no way to reverse the wish. No purpose will be served by pursuing me. I expect we shall not meet again, Mr. Giles. So I will just say, as people do nowadays,” the D’Hoffryn glanced slyly at Xander and then smirked at Giles, “have a nice life.” With a puff of smoke, he vanished.


End file.
